LONDON, 15 June 2006 — Saudi Arabia yesterday welcomed the ruling by Britain’s highest court that four men who say they were tortured in Kingdom’s jails cannot sue Saudi officials over their imprisonment.
The House of Lords ruled yesterday that Britons Ron Jones, Sandy Mitchell and Les Walker and Canadian William Sampson do not have the right to sue their alleged torturers because foreign government officials are immune from prosecution in Britain.
“The principles are well entrenched in British law and as such the judgment of the House of Lords does not come as a surprise in a country known for its fair legal system and respect for the rule of law,” said Prince Mohammed ibn Nawaf, the Kingdom’s Ambassador to the UK and Ireland.
He went on to thank the legal team that represented the Kingdom in the case.
The four men say they were tortured into confessing to involvement in a series of bombings in Riyadh in 2000 and 2001 that killed an American and a Briton and injured several others. The Saudi government blamed a turf war among gangs dealing in alcohol.
The judgment overturns an October 2004 Court of Appeal ruling that dismissed a suit against the Saudi government but said the men could pursue individual alleged torturers. Their suits named two interrogators, a prison deputy governor and the interior minister.
The Saudi government appealed that decision in April, asking the Law Lords — judges who sit in the House of Lords and make up the country’s highest court — to rule that the Kingdom’s officials are protected from civil litigation in Britain under the State Immunity Act.
This important judgment serves the interests of the international community and it respects and protects the right of every legitimate sovereign state to govern within its own borders, free from civil suit in the domestic courts of another state, said an embassy statement.
“Today’s decision is in accordance with accepted principles of international law and is consistent with the position taken by the Kingdom since these claims were first made,” the statement added.
The British government backed the Saudi bid for state immunity, as did the panel of five judges. Prime Minister Tony Blair said Britain had intervened in the case to uphold international law and the principle of state immunity.
The House of Lords has unanimously upheld the Kingdom’s appeal and unanimously dismissed the appeal of Jones.
“The question is whether the claimants, who allege that they were tortured by members of the Saudi Arabian police, can sue the responsible officers and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia itself,” said Lord Hoffmann, one of the five judges.
“The Court of Appeal held that they could sue the officers but that the Kingdom was protected by state immunity. In my opinion both are so protected.”
Lord Bingham of Cornhill said the notion of immunity for individual officials was “fundamental to the principle of state immunity.”
“A state is either immune from the jurisdiction of a foreign court or it is not,” he said. “There is no halfway house and no scope for the exercise of discretion.”
The men were among seven foreigners granted amnesty and freed in 2003.
